Sudan's child soldiers lay down arms

About 100 children, some as young as 10, lope two abreast towards a parade ground, the harsh Sudanese sun glinting on their rifles. They break into a trot, wheeling precisely before coming to a halt.

A man in civilian clothes steps forward and tells the children of 2 Brigade that their war is over.

"There were problems in this area. That is why you were taken, all of you, including the girls," says Paul Pouk Bol, district commissioner for the area around the village of Tam, recently on the front line of Sudan's 20-year civil war.

"This area was about to be taken by the Sudanese government, but now there is peace. You will leave your guns here and you will all be taken to school."

Under American and British pressure, Africa's longest conflict is ending. A formal peace deal is expected next month after a string of accords supposedly addressing the causes of a war that has claimed more than two million lives.

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The children, who know little about the negotiations being conducted in neighbouring Kenya, look confused. Their commander, Major James Gatwic, takes over impatiently. "You should think of your mother and father as your platoon commander from now on," he says.

The children cheer and break into song before laying their battered AK-47s on the ground and taking off their uniforms.

As the children celebrate, Major Gatwic stirs uneasily and lifts his binoculars to his eyes. From the horizon, a single column of armed figures moves at pace towards the parade ground.

"I can't tell whether they're hostile or not," he says, fingering the revolver in his holster.

The men turn out to be friendly, members of a fellow platoon from the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the main rebel group in the south. They have just emerged from a battle with a government-backed tribal militia less than 10 miles away.

While much of the south has enjoyed a lull in the fighting as Sudan limps towards peace, Tam and surrounding areas in the Western Upper Nile region have exploded as rival forces position themselves in the potentially lucrative southern oilfields.

Over the past two years, 500,000 people have been forced from their homes around the oilfields. Militiamen razed Tam nine months ago.

As they savoured their new-found freedom, many of the children were also aware that their future was precarious.

"My father, my brother and I were taken at the same time but they were both killed," said 13-year-old James Mulual. "I have no mother so it is just me now. At least they gave me food in the army, but now what will I eat?"

Scarred by the horrors they have witnessed and maybe even perpetrated, absorbing the children of 2 Brigade back into society would be tough anywhere. In Tam, it is virtually impossible.

All schools in the area have been destroyed and, while the United Nations will spend more than £200 million this year on emergency relief for south Sudan, the region's volatility means Tam is too dangerous for aid agencies to operate in.

But there is room for cautious hope. In the past few weeks, the government and the SPLA have agreed on sharing Sudan's oil wealth, one of the most important steps on the road to peace. Now they will have to try to cajole the militia groups to join in.

Africa's largest country, more than 10 times the size of Britain, has known just nine years of peace in nearly 50 years. It remains bitterly divided between the politically, economically and religiously marginalised black Africans of the south and the mainly Arabic-speaking north.

That marginalisation and the decades of war have meant that southern Sudan is perhaps one of the most undeveloped regions in the world. There is neither electricity nor a single stretch of tarmac in an area twice the size of France. Less than a quarter of south Sudan's children go to school.

The United Nations and aid agencies have built what little infrastructure there is. Last year south Sudanese farmers moved from the hand-held plough to the oxen-drawn plough for the first time. Hopes of sustained peace have proved stillborn in the past. This time American arm-twisting, British diplomacy and war fatigue have combined in Sudan's favour.

Cynics have accused America of becoming interested in Sudan because of its oil. That is unlikely. Producing 250,000 barrels a day will make certain Sudanese strongmen very rich, and could reignite the conflict later, but it would barely register in satisfying America's vast energy needs.

Rather, the war on terrorism has pushed Sudan - which once harboured Osama bin Laden - up President George W Bush's agenda. Ending the country's conflict would allow him to claim a diplomatic coup. So President Omar al-Bashir and John Garang, the SPLA leader, will be invited to a signing ceremony at the White House once a deal is agreed.

Both have already been forced into concessions. Mr Bashir has agreed to a southern referendum on independence and Mr Garang has dropped his demand that Islamic sharia law be abolished in the north.

But all the documents signed and all the goodwill displayed - this week Britain announced that it would cancel its share of Sudan's crippling debt - could be in vain if there is no trust between the two sides. And, for the time being there isn't.

"We know this is just a delaying tactic by Khartoum," said Sylvia Mabor, a tea seller, standing outside a ruined building in Rumbek, the main rebel-held town in the south. "They just want time to buy more weapons and more bombs. We can never trust them until we have a country of our own. Our only hope lies with Bush."

Yielding to US pressure, Mr Garang insists that he wants Sudan to remain united. That has put him on a collision course not just with many of his fellow SPLA commanders, but with the vast majority of the 10 million southern Sudanese.

The novelty of freedom appears to have worn off for James Mulual, the orphaned child soldier. He picks up one of the recently discarded rifles.

"I think it will not be long before I have to carry this again," he says.